CALEDONIAN APIARIAN SOCIETY.
The head-quarters of this Society are at Glasgow; and, taking example from the British Bee Keepers' Association, shows are held and prizes given for beehives and their produce; also living bees at work in glass hives are exhibited. In addition to which, manipulations connected with bee economy, such as transferring, handling bees in bar-frame and other hives, are demonstrated to beholders.
The exhibition of this year (1877) was held at Edinburgh, in connection with the annual gathering of the Highland and Agricultural Society, and which was very successful.
There was a separate charge for admission to the bee and honey department, which was visited by great numbers of people. In consequence of the poor honey harvest, but a small quantity of honeycomb was sent for competition.
With other beehive makers, we exhibited a large collection of our hives, also living bees, with all the appliances needed in bee-culture. The first prize was awarded us for the best and largest display. This prize consists of a handsome silver cup and 40s.
Amongst our interesting collection were a dozen or so of Italian Alp queens in small boxes, each within a separate box, with a few worker bees. These had been sent over expressly for this show, and would therefore take no harm by being kept a few days, until purchased by some of the enterprising Scotch bee-keepers, and substituted for ordinary queens in the manner explained in the body of this work.
One of the transparent single-comb hives brought from the neighbourhood of Glasgow and exhibit ed by the indefatigable honorary secretary of the Society, Mr. Bennett, was thought to possess no queen, as no brood was to be seen, and there were so many drones present in the hive. In order to supply what we considered the deficiency, we appropriated one of the boxes containing a foreign queen, and in the evening allowed her majesty quietly to pass into the hive through an opening on top, taking the precaution to cover up the hive.
Exterior of Apiary.
As originally erected in the Zoological Gardens, Regent's Park.
Interior of Apiary.
On making an inspection next morning we were surprised to find a very dark Italian queen, as we thought. A few hours later we witnessed an interesting scene, no less than a single combat between the real Italian queen and the queen of the hive; for although we had judged the hive to be queenless there was one in the hive all the time, but she was a virgin. At the moment of our observation the two queens were engaged in mortal conflict, and we were able to summon our worthy secretary and a few apiarian friends to witness the battle. After some few minutes (each being curled round against the other) the English or rather the Scotch queen dropped dead to the bottom of the hive and was seen no more. It would have been interesting to have gained possession of the dead queen for examination under the microscope, but the construction of the hive and the position it was in did not allow of searching for her. The Italian mother, who was for some time after greatly excited and evidently much discomposed, reigned supreme, the monarch of the hive; and being already fertilised, the worker bees paid her due attention, but began worrying and tormenting the drones, because they were now not wanted.
These assaults of the little active working bees on the burley drones very much interested the spectators. The queen proceeded with her duties of egg-laying, and the bees having exit through the hording, the usual work of the hives was carried on fully exposed to view. Not the least gratifying feature was the sight of these little labourers travelling in and out under the glazed covered way.
More active manipulation, such as driving bees from one hive to another, gaining possession of the queen, and exhibiting her in the hand, was carried on in another portion of the shed, and became a source of wonderment to spectators.
Many of the local newspapers had paragraphs descriptive of this new exhibition in connection with a Scotch agricultural show.